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How would you conduct a fact-finding survey?

by sylviad
8 replies
As you know, the one thing marketers must do to succeed is to find out what their audience wants. This can be difficult to achieve if people just don't want to bother doing your survey or even responding to your email queries.

My plan is to do something special for travel site owners but I need to know exactly what it is they need so that I can deliver it. Without that information, I'll be shooting into the dark with something they just don't care about or don't want. I "think" I have a good idea what would be useful to them, but it's only a guess.

How would you proceed to find out this information? How would you approach them so that you get a response.

I was thinking of starting out describing what I plan to do and that their input would help me to help them, but this generally hasn't worked very well for me in the past.

Your recommendations are greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Sylvia
#conduct #factfinding #survey
  • Profile picture of the author Sean Donahoe
    Hi Sylvia,

    When I have done this with clients we have found that we have to really give them a great incentive to fill in the form and ensure that we get good responses.

    Actually, the client we last did this with was a travel service and they offered a drawing for a free vacation for every entry and a discount coupon for their services for every survey completed.

    We hyped this up a bit in advance with some newsletter postings and ads on the site about a big upcoming competiton to win a vacation and drummed up some "desire" which is really essential to success here.

    Once we launched we really focused on the real core of what we needed to know and made it as simple as possible. No fluff and filler.

    We made all the questions multiple choice and drop down select boxes except for the personal information section such as name and address etc. as we found that most people hate to write "Opinions" and just want to get to the end.

    Basically:

    1. Get them hungry with some pre-hype
    2. Make it easy to compete the survey
    3. make them feel good with a small bonus
    4. Let them know they are in the running for the big one
    Hope that helps...

    Regards

    Sean Donahoe
    The Manic Marketer
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    • Profile picture of the author sylviad
      Thanks, Sean,

      That's a great approach I've seen done before. The thing is, I'm offering a service to people running travel-related web sites, not to travellers directly, so a chance to win a trip might not be the right bonus.

      It might work if I offer them free samples in exchange for their replies but that could amount to a phenomenal amount of unpaid work/time.

      In a survey, how many responses would be required to get a reasonably good representation of the whole? Travel has such a huge following.

      Sylvia
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      • Profile picture of the author Sean Donahoe
        Ahh sorry for the misunderstanding. You could craft an incentive targeted to them and their direct needs.

        In terms of response it really depends on your catchment area or scope of inquiry. If you are getting a 10% response out of 1000 or 5000 then you get a fair idea. However, if you only target 100 people and get 10 its not going to give you a fair idea of the whole market.

        It is impossible to really say what percentage you may need to get a fair representation and it really depends on the questions and consistency of responses. If they are all the same response then you know you are getting a fair cross-section of opinion. However, if the responses are all over the place then you need more targeted questions (or a follow up survey) or more responses.

        One thing I have found great in this kind of situation is to actually interview industry leaders and ask questions I need to know from everyone else and then put that in a newsletter which I mail to everyone in the industry.

        This commands the attention of the whole industry you have in your reach and then encourage feedback and direct them to the questionnaire to get their direct feedback.

        Anyway, let me know how it goes and I hope these tips help you get the information you need.

        Regards

        Sean Donahoe
        the Manic Marketer
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        • Profile picture of the author sylviad
          Thanks, Sean.

          This all makes a lot of sense. The target will be a certain segment of travel business operators, so it will be a challenge finding my select market. For instance, businesses that just provide bookings most likely will not want or need what I'm offering.

          Tourism is new to me at this level so I'm basically starting from scratch to find the right people to approach, get hold of a list right away to target with my survey, etc.

          Interesting statement:

          You could craft an incentive targeted to them and their direct needs.
          If I'm not sure what are their needs, this alone poses an interesting challenge. It's like putting the buggy before the horse.


          Sylvia
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          • Profile picture of the author Sean Donahoe
            Well there is one thing you can do, just call a few and ask them directly.

            I have often found that as busy as people are, they are usually willing to talk about the problems they face as a business. If you call a few and ask for an interview for a piece you are writing (stress that you are not competition) and that you are looking to create a service that helps with those issues then you can get the foothold you need.

            Sean
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            • Profile picture of the author sylviad
              Wow. Thanks Sean. There's nothing like keeping it simple, huh?
              That's a great idea and approach. I'm pretty sure that my offer will be of value to them, I just need their confirmation.

              Sylvia
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  • Profile picture of the author Sean Donahoe
    Glad to help, keep me posted on your progress.

    Regards

    Sean
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    • Profile picture of the author spartanmachine
      I would definitely suggest hitting forums in your niche.
      There is tons of info you can get there.
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